Inherited Magic (12 page)

Chapter 40

Thanksgiving loomed on the horizon, and it held a depressive quality for John; it was the first holiday that he would truly spend alone. He had not always been able to make it home to see his father, but he had called every year, and then Barb had been there with him to keep him company. They had tried their best to put together Thanksgiving dinners every year, with the first attempt being an utter disaster and every year improving slowly after that. He wanted to cook this year, but there didn't seem much point in doing it alone and that hurt.

He tried to distract himself by studying for his midterms, but he found himself feeling surprisingly confident and prepared for the test in his math class. Things at the shop were surprisingly busy; Owen said that there was always a rush before and after the holidays, with a lull in the middle. So that helped a lot, but not enough. Perhaps it was the loneliness or his desperation to find something else to think about, but without thinking about it or realizing it, John found himself thinking of Radha more and more. Even today, as he waited his turn for a vending machine, he was thinking of her and looking forward to seeing her in class. He wanted to talk to her, dreamed of talking to her (and more), but he felt intimidated by her beauty, to say nothing of the intelligence she demonstrated in class. What you and I both know though, is that Radha also wanted to talk to him and when she saw him waiting his turn at the vending machine, she decided to bump into him, literally and very purposefully.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she said sweetly

“That's okay.” John smiled and was briefly stupefied again by the brilliance of her eyes.

They both desperately seized the moment to talk.

“Did you—”

“How come—”

John and Radha spoke at once, stopped together, and made solid eye contact as they tried not to cut each other off . . . And they laughed. There are moments when you know things about people, how you feel about them or a truth about them. For better or worse, there are those moments. Here they were, in a moment together. John saw that Radha really was very approachable and wanted him to approach her. Radha saw that John was polite and kind. Small things that matter in the grand scheme of things, but we knew that already didn't we?

“We're gonna be late to class . . .” John looked at his watch nervously.

“Nothing new to me.” Radha smiled.

“I know.” John laughed.

“You've been watching me?” Radha said, with a coy smile on her lips.

“How could I not?” John unintentionally said the right thing and hurried on, thinking he had said the wrong thing. “We're gonna be late, but can I buy you lunch after class?”

“No, because I have to get to work, but you can buy me tea before class next time.” She started to walk towards class and John followed her, forgetting that he had intended to buy a drink. “Do you know where the coffee shop is down the street?”

“Yeah, the one on Magnolia?”

“Is eight good?” Radha suddenly felt like she was being too direct and reminded herself to be more careful in the future not to give him the wrong idea. She wondered briefly what it was about John that made her direct when normally she was reserved.

“Sure, eight it is.” John wished the walk to class had taken longer, but he also was terrified he was going to say the wrong thing again. He held the door for her and had a hard time focusing on anything else for the rest of the day.

Chapter 41

John could smell her tea from across the table; it was spicy and exotic compared to the taste of his over sweetened coffee. He had wanted to sit outside in the small sitting area the coffee shop had by the sidewalk, but it was starting to rain and was a bit too cool for it anyways. He wanted to play it cool and still be romantic. Sure it was just coffee before class, but he wanted it to be as close to perfect as it could be.

“So, you have a slight accent. Where are you from?” Radha asked, before sipping her tea.

“I do?”

Radha smiled and nodded.

John had never considered himself to have an accent or even thought about it. “Saint Paul, Minnesota. It's not that different from Chicago, in some ways.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Not anymore.”

“Don't you have family back there?”

“My father died a few months back, so not anymore.”

“I'm so sorry.” A lot of people say that when they hear you've lost a family member, and as you grieve you get sick of hearing it, but when Radha said it, John felt real feelings and empathy in her words.

“How about you?”

“I grew up here.”

“In Chicago?” John realized that was why she didn't have an accent and suddenly saw how stupid it was to think that way, to allow stupid ideas and stereotypical thinking to influence his way of thinking. He had to be more open minded than that.

“Yeah, my parents moved here from India after they got married.” She paused to sip her tea and just as John was starting to feel that he should ask something else, she started again. “I'm the youngest; I have two brothers and a sister.”

“Must be nice having a big family.”

“It was. Very noisy though.” She paused and her eyes clouded over briefly. “We don't talk anymore.”

“Oh.” John found himself fumbling with what to say. “I—”

“It's not something I usually bring up.” She cut him off and spoke quickly as if she might think twice before saying what she wanted. “It's just one of those things that you don't understand unless your family is from India.”

“Try me.”

“Hmm?”

“I've seen a lot of crazy shit and been through some bad times. I might understand.” It's strange, but hunting crazed magical killers through the city tends to put everything else into perspective.

“Okay.” She hesitated and looked at John’s eyes and seemed to make some internal decision before going on. “They took me to India on a vacation; to meet family they said, and while we were there, they tried to convince me to marry a man they had picked out for me. When I argued, they told me this is tradition, how they were married, and how my sister was married. When I argued again, they told me I had a choice, but asked that I at least meet him, so I did. He was rude and mean, so I refused again.

When we came back to the states, my father and I argued till he threw me out of the house and forbade my brothers and sisters to talk to me.” Her story spilled from her in a torrent, and while John knew there were more edges and splinters to draw blood hidden in details, the overall facts were obviously painful enough.

“Wow,” he whispered.

“Most Americans don't understand.”

“It's not that I don't understand, it's that I don't get how a father could be so hard on his daughter.”

“He really is a good man. He’s just very traditional and he just doesn’t understand that I don't want my life to be like that. My mom and dad have an arranged marriage and neither one of them seems happy to me, I've seen arranged marriages that were very happy . . .” She paused ever so briefly and looked into her tea. “I just want it to be my choice.”

John saw her there, staring into her tea and not seeing anything. There were people coming and going around them, students and office workers rushing to work; they seemed to exist outside their tiny bubble for this moment. He suddenly saw how lonely she was and that it hurt her that what she thought was right for her was against her family’s wishes.

“I'm sorry, I misunderstood.” John examined his own cooling coffee. “You must be very lonely without them, especially after being surrounded by so many people for so long.”

“It's been hard, but work and school keep me busy, so I don't think about it too often.”

“I know since I started school I haven't had time to do anything.”

“Where do you work?”

“At a pawn shop over on Western.”

“Really? Is it kind of sleazy?”

“No. I mean we get some interesting people in, but Owen runs a legit business.” John found himself hesitant to talk about the shop; it was too closely related to Owen teaching him magic and all the madness that involved. “Where do you work?”

“I work as a cashier during the week and then on weekends I work in a bookstore over on Clark Street.” Her cell phone started blasting a siren sound so horrible that several other people in the coffee shop looked over in a startled manner. Radha quickly pulled it from her purse and silenced it with deft fingers. “We are now officially late to class.”

“I was wondering . . .” John hefted his backpack.

“Yes.”

“Do you wanna catch a movie this weekend?”

“Yes.”

John noticed her struggling with her heavy backpack and offered a hand. Radha smiled and let him carry it as they rushed to class.

Chapter 42

Their first date went well, very well, so well that it shocked John. They had gone to dinner at a small Thai restaurant that Radha had suggested, and it was great food with even better conversation. John found himself at first intimidated by her, as she was well traveled and spoke several languages, but she wore it naturally and blushed whenever she caught him looking at her. So, in the end, he felt not intimidated but fascinated by her and couldn't look away. The movie they went to was a romantic comedy, not what John usually watched, but they laughed and midway through the movie, she was holding his hand.

They took a cab to her place, and he walked her to the door, and those wild thoughts that go through every guy’s head on a date were going through John’s. He knew he had to keep them under control or he was going to ruin a good thing. A mixture of love and lust is a volatile thing. Radha saw that he was nervous and she was pretty sure she knew what was going through his head because not so different thoughts were going through her own mind. But she was nervous for different reasons by the time they got to the front door of her building.

“I had a great time, John.” She turned to face him.

“So did I.”

“I want to do this again, soon.”

“I was hoping so, I'd like to see you again . . . Outside of class.”

“I need you to know something though.”

John’s heart sank, and he suddenly wondered where this was going.

“You're not coming upstairs to my apartment, ever.”

“Huh?”

“I'm not like other girls you've dated. No sex before marriage, no fooling around.”

“Oh.” John was somehow relieved that it wasn't something else, but was frustrated with himself for his previous immature ideas of what might happen.

“If that's something you can't handle, then I'm sorry.” For all the blushing and flirting that had gone on earlier in the evening, there was now stone in her voice and cold fire in her eyes. John realized that this was not a timid girl but a woman with fire in her blood and a well-earned iron will.

“I can handle it, but can I kiss you good night?”

“Don't tell me you're fine with it and change—”

“Radha!”

“What?”

“I'm fine with it. Can I kiss you good night?”

“Y-yes.” She blushed again.

They kissed, and were oblivious to the world, till one of Radha's neighbors interrupted them. They were blocking the door to the building.

Chapter 43

John sat on his bed listening to the radio; he still hadn't bought a TV. It was turning into one of those things that he only thought about when he was home with nothing to do, in other words never, well . . . Except for right then, the middle of the afternoon and he had done his laundry, cleaned his dishes, gotten a head start on his school work for the next week, and was now left with nothing to do. So he sat on his bed and tried not to feel alone on Thanksgiving Day.

He thought about calling Radha. He thought about calling her a lot, but the one time he did around noon he got her voice mail and he didn't want to seem creepy after only one date. The shop was closed, and Owen was off to where ever Owen was. He never talked about his personal life so John could only guess. So here he was, alone on Thanksgiving Day and letting it drag him down.

John showered and dressed before walking out the door. Normally, parking was a commodity by his apartment, anywhere in the neighborhood really, but that afternoon there was hardly a handful of cars to be had. It was disquieting, and it was easy for John to imagine that The Plague had come and wiped out most of the city, taking their cars with them. He walked to the local greasy spoon that called itself “the best 24 hour pancake house in Chicago,” but the best things on the menu were the burgers. All the same, John embraced his adventurous side and tried the turkey dinner special. There were only a few other souls in the diner, and a family in the corner booth that had stopped on their way to or from somewhere. The whole thing felt sad but not so lonely, so John lingered over his meal as long as he could before going home.

John walked into his small studio apartment and looked around; it was home in name only. He could vanish off the face of the earth, and there was nothing in this room that would leave a clue as to who he was and what he had struggled against in his life. Nothing but The Book and his grandfather’s ring would truly speak of his life. The strangest, most important, powerful, and darkest part of his life was the only clue as to who he had become. And yet, he barely understood it himself. John suddenly felt angry.

It was not an immediate burning rage that boils over and must be shouted and stomped about; it was a cold seething existential anger. His life had been one mad event after another since finding The Book. He had killed and almost been killed, and he would never be in control of his life till . . . He paused internally. He had almost thought about destroying it, but that repulsed him because it was the last thing he had left of his family and the one thing that he hung his future on. Not anymore, now there was another reason for a future: Radha. He scolded himself: one date, and he was acting a fool over her. Best to be patient.

He pulled The Book and key out of their hiding place in the closet, sat on his bed, and again started trying to decode the strange language. It had frustrated him to no end that he couldn't make sense of it. There was no way someone had gone through all the trouble to make something so random that anyone could open it and discover magic. There had to be more, a secret message at least. It was maddening. He felt like it was something obvious and he was a fool for not seeing it or figuring it out after all the time he had spent staring at it. Perhaps that was the problem, and he needed to look at it fresh again.

He closed The Book, pulled the key out, and set them side by side on his bed. Then he slowly and deliberately looked at every inch of The Book, testing for hidden compartments and tracing his fingers over the patterns etched in its surface. He found nothing new but marveled again at the perfection of detail and craftsmanship that must have gone into creating the cursed thing. Putting it down, he looked at the key and wondered about it without picking it up. It almost seemed too ordinary to belong to such an extraordinary object, a skeleton key like millions of others. It seemed exceptional only in that it was made of the same material as the book . . .

John paused. The book was at least a hundred years old, and there was not a scratch or imperfection on it, while the key was made of the same strange not-gold material and yet it had scratches up and down the length of it. How?

John went to his small kitchenette and pulled one of his two forks from a drawer, then savagely tried to scratch the cover of The Book with it. He broke one of the tines off the fork and did no damage to The Book. He tried scratching the key with the fork, making the best of the jagged edges where he had broken it, but it did nothing. So they couldn't be scratches that spiraled up and down the key; they had to have been deliberately put there, but why?

He put the key into The Book; there was no scraping or resistance and the cover popped open slightly as always. John pushed the cover closed; it clicked and the key loosened. He wiggled the key and felt only an eerie soft resistance. He pushed the key in further till the resistance increased, then he turned the key—and the cover popped open to new pages.